creating intimacy Archives - Page 4 of 6

Are You Conniving in Your Relating?

Partners love telling each other what to do, how to behave, how to be, what to think, how to feel, and even things like what to eat and how to dress! They are on a mission to change their partner, consciously or not. This is a sign of lack of boundaries and personal ownership. Partners love owning each other instead…

Owning each other disempowers both partners. The partners can’t be themselves… They have no control over what their partner does rendering them unable to create change if all the change is to come from their partner… In minding the other’s business they neglect to mind their own…

Partners love focusing on their partner and how much they stink, how they lack in some way. How they don’t do things, do things wrong, do the wrong things, and other goodies. The focus is negative. They don’t acknowledge, accept or cherish their partner. They don’t allow their partner to be themselves regardless of their warts.

Partners don’t own how they are inviting the behavior or attitudes that don’t meet their needs, what they are contributing to their situation, and how they are not being the ideal partner… This lack of boundary, ownership and accountability is detrimental to our relationship, our selfhood and our life!

It makes sense partners don’t believe change is possible, even though they are trying to change their partner! But, I’ve seen miracles happen when partners create space for their partner to be themselves, and focus instead on their own contribution to their life and relationship. They seem to have become different people and a different couple.

Change IS possible. We are not striving to change the core people. We are awesome just as we are. And, we don’t want to change our partner – that’s with whom we fell in love! On the other hand, we are striving to approach each other differently so we connect, meet our needs and support each other’s human Journey.

When we set proper and appropriate boundaries, own ourselves and are accountable we create safety, security and trust. We allow our Authentic Selves to come out and play. When our Authentic Selves show up, we can create the relationship and life we want.

Remember, let your partner do their thing, be themselves, have their side of the story, have their experience and perspective, have their own views. You don’t have to love it or even agree with it all. You are entitled to yours as well, and your partner does not have to love it or even agree with it all either. This boils down to acknowledging and accepting each other’s world. You don’t have to compete to Exist…

Acknowledging, accepting and validating your partner’s world does not nullify yours… You can both see and experience something differently. As a matter of fact, you will both see and experience things differently. This is the way things are. You are two separate individuals…

Our job is to bit by bit allow our partner’s world to exist, and to own our own. Doing this in a measured way, reassuring each other, supporting and acknowledging each other, and having compassion for ourselves and each other makes this task possible and manageable. Going too abruptly creates our partner’s and our own resistance. Be patient and loving with your Self and your Partner.

In conniving with each other we exist, collaborate, and create. We can create the relationship and life we want. We can contribute a better us to the world, we can create a better world… Complete the MetroRelationship (sm) Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing the relationship you want.

Happy Conniving!

~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment

For the next three days, set aside a few minutes every night to share about an experience you each had that day. Take turns sharing and listening. When the sharing partner is done, the listening partner is to repeat the essence of the story to make sure they got their partner’s point. Then they are to validate their partner’s experience: Expressing how it makes sense. Validating the partner’s experience does not mean the listener agrees with the story, experience, event, how it was handled, or that they would have experienced it the same way… It means, the listener understands their partner’s experience and that it makes sense they would experience that given who they are…

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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.

Do You Have the System to Meet Both of Your Needs Yet?

by Emma Viglucci

Being seen and accepted for who we are is a basic need that specially plays out in our relationship. I find that the driver behind most conflict and dissatisfaction in relationships has to do with the partners feeling they can’t be themselves in one way or another.

Partners impart this message to one another in different ways: Giving open criticism, telling the other how to be and do things, being very helpful and taking over, undermining the other’s efforts, minimizing or dismissing the other’s experience.

Withdrawing from interactions and in other ways, not keeping promises, forgetting or not honoring agreements, refusing to compromise, interrupting or changing the conversation, making digs and I’m sure you can identify others.

This (re)traumatizes partners and has a massive negative impact on the quality, and success, of their relationship.

As human beings we have the Prime Directive to be our Authentic and Unique selves. This is our gift to our world and humanity. It is our reason for Living. It is our job to fully engage our Selves and make a Contribution flowing from our Experience… When partners judge, criticize, control, demean, sabotage and other goodies they prevent each other from embracing their awesomeness, their Legacy, and from (identifying and) fulfilling their Life’s Purpose.

Therefore, there is incongruency for partners between the experience in the relationship and their sense of Self. This is where all the disagreement, not getting along, questioning, ambivalence, turmoil, etc. comes from. Partners fighting is an actual fight for survival – for survival of the Self!

Here is where the balance between security and identify needs comes in. There usually is a gender manifestation around this where the women (more female energied partner) champion for we-ness and togetherness and the men (more male energied partner) champion for individuality and space.

The approach to bridge these seemingly opposing needs is to set up a system that supports and encourages both: Staying connected to our partner while taking time for our Self and our pursuits, or doing things our way…

Bridging Needs System:

Strategy – Set up plans to pursue a hobby, interest, socializing, and the like or doing something your way that includes built-in safety around this for your partner: Sharing the Why this is important to you, details involved for transparency (safeguarding trust), and how to stay in connection or synchronized.

Management – Manage the feelings that come up in making and bringing up the plans; and in receiving the news of your partner’s plans. Fear of some sort usually comes up for both partners for different reasons…

Development – While not together or entertaining your partner’s different approach make the most of your separate time or differences. This is a huge opportunity to learn more about your Self, fine tune your craft, share your Gift, replenish and recharge, connect with others, expand your repertoire, stretch your comfort zone, and invest in your Self in any way that enriches your Journey.

Reengagement – Don’t beat up your partner upon reentry, or completion of engagement! Share any struggles you might have experienced from an opportunity-for-growth place, not as a mechanism to manipulate and control to take care of your neediness… Stretch to share and receive what was learned, enjoyed, gained, etc. Remember: It’s OK to be separate.

Synergy – Stay tuned for how you are growing as a person, as a couple, and as agents of Change…

Employ a Groundhog Day approach to your system – review how you did, where you might need assistance, what could improve, and what to tweak in your process next time. Keep doing this striving for a masterpiece system with the knowledge that it’s a work in progress and perfection doesn’t exist.

Complete the MetroRelationship (sm) Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing the relationship you want.

Happy Groundhoging!

~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment

Take a moment to discuss this approach with your partner and create your Bridging Needs System. Explore which step might be particularly difficult for each of you and why, speaking about your own potential struggle. Do not speak for your partner… Share the why from a Self Development place, not from a blaming your partner place… Support each other in your individual stretch and growth.

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FOR VALENTINE’S DAY: The Gift of Self Exploration & Expression

by Emma Viglucci

Often times partners share their wondering about how exclusivity, monogamy, and fidelity is possible in a longterm relationship. It is usually the male partners who pose this question when their female counterpart is not present.

I appreciate their honesty, risk and willingness to explore this topic and concern. I completely understand their plight. Unfortunately, this is often chucked to “boys will be boys”, “it is unnatural for a man to be monogamous” and the like making men appear archaic. I would like to believe that we are more evolved than this. That society is not caging an animal with marriage that when let loose it will wreak havoc.

No, not “I would like to believe”, I DO believe that. I believe that the primal impulse to conquer and be “king of the jungle” has evolved and moved to the career and money earning potential realm. This is why men who don’t feel comfortable in their level of success, as measured by society’s standards in this regard, are depressed, dissatisfied, “searching” and managing the associated pain by numbing themselves in some way.

Yes, the “successful” ones experience some of this as well because they still don’t feel as the “king of the jungle” at some level… Their primary relationship is not meeting this need… I hear the uproar from women, feminists and social keepers…

But, let these men lose and they are still not happy… The answer lies in the balance between togetherness and separateness not just when it comes to how much time we spend together, but at an identity and energy level. If we are “too close” we lose our selves, our individuality, our uniqueness. This is a traumatic and annihilating loss.

Women have a higher tolerance level for this as historically and culturally they’ve been taught, and even threatened, to be in this role, and because their brain is wired for “weness” to serve an evolutionary purpose.

Men might experience this more as the caged-in syndrome. They are more likely to experience exclusivity as restrictive and believe that the answer might lie in going elsewhere to find and engage the other parts of themselves…

Sexual intimacy as we know it in relationship, is laden with burden and restrictiveness. Women bring in the caretaking and men the protectiveness (restrained aggression). Neither is bringing their primal and adult-evolved selves, whose basic needs are being met, to their interaction. This creates neediness and apathy. This is boring!

What we usually fail to see is that in absence there is longing. In separateness we can embrace and share our splendor, and herein the “king of the jungle” thrives. Here is where men and women get to be themselves without the burden of stereotypes and other prescriptions…

So, how do we set up security, connection and closeness to meet our security needs, and yet allow for space, separateness and individuality to meet our identity and erotic needs? We think (or react…) through our interactions. We think through our lovemaking.

Thinking creates emotional intimacy (when positive…), but with the caveat of impeding erotic intimacy. We do not allow ourselves to feel and be present. We do not fully express ourselves physically. We do not fully engage our embodied soul. We feel empty and dead.

We might fall pray to believing we’d feel more alive by increasing the number of sexual conquests we notch on our belt, but we are bigger than this! It is instead about how we fully express our Selves in our human dimension in every interaction and every moment. It is not about numbers, it is about being…

So, while we continue to invest in meeting our basic needs it behooves us to be with ourselves, in our body and have a full experience of our Selves that we share with our partner. Yes, reality has its limitations and consequences. It is challenging to achieve this level of Being.

In the mean time the use of fantasy, Imagination, in sexuality is a vehicle that allows for the expression of unmet security needs, unburdened loving, and engagement of our embodied soul. As Esther Perel suggests, “sex is somewhere we go, not something we do” and the goal in our relationship is to have intimacy through sex – erotic intimacy.

Our committed relationship, marriage, is then not a cage but a mechanism for self exploration, development and expression. This marrying of meeting our security and identity needs, eroticism, frees us to transcend our human experience, and the perceived limitations of monogamy, allowing us to embrace our latent Spiritual Being…

At the end of the day, fully embracing our humanity and physical body is our pathway to our Spiritual Self… Complete the MetroRelationship (sm) Assignment to help you effortlessly start implementing this, make changes and immediately experience the relationship you want. There is no need to be archaic – transcend the limitations and embrace the possibilities!

Happy Transcending!

~ Your MetroRelationship ™ Assignment Find something romantic to do with your partner, your self and/or a platonic someone else… Engage your body and senses… Give from the heart, use your imagination, get creative, be indulgent – savor the giving, savor the moment, savor the love. Enjoy!

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The Secret to Increasing Attraction and Loving…

by Emma Viglucci

When we are “too close”, whether we are getting along or not … , we can’t see each other. If we can’t see each other, how can we possibly decide if we like each other and feel attraction?

This concept is confusing to most, when we live in a society where relationships struggle and the ideal is based on fairy tales and believing our partner should be our best friend.

This is wrong. We do not want our partner to be our best friend. This places them in the familial category which makes the relationship incestous. It makes sense that the attraction wanes, or doesn’t exist!

But even when we are not getting along, we might be too close for attraction and desire. We might think we are not feeling sexy feelings because we are fighting or are not seeing eye-to-eye. When in truth, we might not be feeling desire, because our energies and needs are enmeshed. This lack of differentiation is detrimental to relationships. It causes too much angst and erosion.

It’s an actual conundrum for partners as they need to experience separateness and differentiation to activate and maintain attraction, desire and passion (this is different from drama!), but need to experience togetherness and security to tolerate separateness and be able to thrive. This is where couples go wrong. They do funny business to juggle this dichotomy.

Due to this contrary nature, when we are psychically invested in meeting our emotional needs we can’t at the same time meet our erotic needs leaving couples to focus on the primary relational tasks of getting along, fighting well, communicating better, feeling closeness and spending fun times together.

This assists manage crisis, prevent relational trauma, repair damage, heal wounds, grow-up and joyfully and peacefully “stay on the horse.” For most couples this in and of itself is a life journey through which they get to enjoy a satisfying and intentional relationship.

The problem comes in when the enmeshment and psychic needs are so prevalent that even this foundation is challenging to achieve. The next phase of creating and sustaining desire, passion and eroticism is then inconceivable … Couples would benefit from distinguishing between these two stages of relating and not placing the cart before the horse which only creates more confusion, dissatisfaction and hopelessness.

Whether you are trying to establish a strong and secure structure or get to the next phase, fear not for as long as you are investing in this journey you’ll get results and create the life and relationship you want …

Here is to adding perspective and investing productively:

Closeness, togetherness and security (physical – intellectual – validation): Stand on your own two feet and own only yourself … Mind what you are doing and operate from your strengths. Let your partner do the same without judging or criticizing them.

Separateness and differentiation (psychic – emotional – empathy) – not to be misunderstood as being individualistic and ego driven: Explore uniqueness and tolerance … Learn to self manage and regulate, implement a lot of self care, embrace your uniqueness. Embrace our partner’s uniqueness.

Oneness and synergy (energetic – transcendent, visionary, creative – compassion, altruism): Unleash your Authentic Self and Light … Attune to what makes you happy and feel good in everyday life, your feelings are your guiding mechanism, get in touch with your Mission and get to it. Invite your partner to do the same.

Note these are not mutually exclusive and are fluid in nature. It is helpful to see them as a progressive range or stages (a ramp), and not as concrete steps or levels (a set of stairs). Most couples operate from some overlap of the first two stages, so know you are not alone!

Keep working your ramp and your desire and attraction quotient will skyrocket! Complete the MetroRelationship (sm) Assignment below to help you effortlessly implement this, make changes and immediately start experiencing the relationship you want. Enjoy more attraction, desire and loving today!

Happy Attraction and Loving!

~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment

Pick an activity, outing or hobby you’ve been admiring from afar and work with your partner to integrate it into your schedule and routine. Build-in a reconnection ritual for when you get back …

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Would You Like to Experience Greater Desire and Passion?

by Emma Viglucci

Couples usually end up accepting the lack of desire and passion in their relationship as a fact of life for a longterm relationship. They are not happy or satisfied with this, but their attempts at remedying their lack of (passionate) physical intimacy don’t usually succeed.

The reason for this is partners’ misconceived ideas about sex, intimacy, and each other, unrealistic expectations, body issues, attachment issues, unmet developmental emotional needs, judgement and criticism, and owning of each other instead of themselves. The resulting mindset has a huge impact on their libido and the couple’s sexual life.

In addition to addressing the above, couples can greatly increase their passion by actively monitoring and engaging their mind. “Sex is not something we do, is somewhere we go,” says MFT colleague Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity.

We usually focus on what we are doing. It’s not about technique, the motions, or the positions. It’s about Being deep inside our Selves in our body and our imagination. It’s an expression of our Self. How can we desire or be desired if we don’t exist …, show up?

It is our job to turn our Selves ON. The more confidence we feel, the better the sex. Turn the criticism and other owning buttons off. You don’t have to be perfect and neither does your partner. You don’t have to love everything about each other. You are both OK the way you are. You are both Hot!

Engage that part of you in your mind, and allow it to come out and play with your partner. Watch the video to assist you address the mindset holding you back and for practical steps for immediately creating greater passion:

5 Tips for Greater Passion

1) Lower Expectations
2) Invite, Entice …
3) Set-Up & Prepare
4) Work With Each Other
5) Expand Your Repertoire!

Every month can be a Month of Love. Start enjoying greater passion today. Watch the video to learn about these steps and start applying them now. Complete the MetroRelationship (sm) Assignment below to assist you effortlessly make changes and immediately start experiencing the relationship you want.

Surprise your Self and your partner with increased desire and passion!

Happy Desiring all Year Around!

~ Your MetroRelationship™ Assignment

Set an alarm to check-in 3x/day: 1) look around you, appreciate something beautiful and add more beauty to your environment, 2) check on how your body feels, what it needs and give this to your Self, and 3) pay attention to your thoughts, accept them, and add a vision of sensuality …

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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT has been in the mental health profession in varying capacities for the past 20+ years. She is the Founder and Director of metrorelationship.com a psychotherapy and coaching practice specializing in working with busy professional and entrepreneurial couples who are struggling getting on the same page and feeling connected. The work helps couples create a radiant and successful relationship and meaningful life by becoming a strong partnership and increasing their connection, intimacy, and fun. Emma is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and the Successful Relationship Strategy™.

Are You Conniving in Your Relating?

Do You Have the System to Meet Both of Your Needs Yet?

FOR VALENTINE’S DAY: The Gift of Self Exploration & Expression

The Secret to Increasing Attraction and Loving…

Would You Like to Experience Greater Desire and Passion?

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